Public Power Current

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management and Office of Science recently issued a Request for Proposal seeking proposals from companies to build and power AI data centers at DOE’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) expired at 12:01 a.m. on the morning of October 1. APPA strongly supported the enactment of CISA 2015 and supports a clean, long-term reauthorization of CISA 2015.

Public power utilities across the U.S. are planning a wide range of activities to celebrate this year’s Public Power Week, which is October 5-11. Those activities include, among other things, spotlighting the voices of customers on social media, holding cookouts and providing power plant tours.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced $16 million in state funds to support the development of New York’s clean energy workforce.

With the right strategies, data centers can transition from being passive loads to dynamic resources that actively support the grid, a recent GridBeyond white paper says.

A project involving the American Public Power Association, a group of APPA members and the Argonne National Laboratory focused on wildfire risk mitigation has resulted in new resources that can be utilized by the public power community.

For water and electric utilities, it is critical to communicate with customers about potential leaks, rate changes and outages. Speed and clarity are essential to ensuring water is not wasted and customers know about outages. This boosts customer satisfaction. The use of texting by the City of Bryan, Texas, and Bryan Texas Utilities has yielded a wide range of benefits.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has named Matt Rasmussen as its new Chief Nuclear Officer, succeeding Tim Rausch, who is retiring after a distinguished 40-year career in the nuclear industry.